


Journey Home (A Story Told in 10 Song Drabbles)

by dreamsofspike



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofspike/pseuds/dreamsofspike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A single incident can haunt you for the rest of your life... if you let it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journey Home (A Story Told in 10 Song Drabbles)

**One of These Days - Tim McGraw** (175 words)

“One day, you'll all work for me.”

He announces it airily, his pride and certainty a wall between himself and their contempt, their cruelty... their hatred. But even if it someday proves to be true, he knows it will feel like a hollow victory. If they all wind up looking up to him, reading about him in _Forbes_ – or _Vogue,_ more likely– there will be a certain satisfaction in that, but....

… it's not what he really wants from them... from everyone.

 

He's so lonely, he _aches_ with it.

 

They mock him, threaten him, push him around – and it hurts to know that they see him as nothing more than a joke, an object upon which to project their own insecurities. They don't see his talent, his humor, his heart – the person behind the label they slapped on him long before he was ready to own it.

Someday, they'll all regret the things they've done to him. Someday, they'll see him with respect.

Right now, today – he's desperate for someone just to _see him_ at all.

 **Ironic - Alanis Morissette** (125 words)

It's a cruel irony, really.

He's always been infected with a touch of the same fever that consumes Rachel. He's just better at keeping it from turning him into an annoying, insufferable diva that no one else can stand to be around.

A _little_ better, anyway.

He's always craved the spotlight, to be noticed, recognized, for what he can offer. Then he joined glee club, and saw the possibilities before him. His frustrations rose when he realized that Mr. Shuester was unlikely to let him reach those possibilities, as long as Rachel and Finn were in the group. He ached to show what he was capable of, ached for the attention, the acknowledgment.

Until Karofsky.

Now, all he wants is to fade into the background again.

 **Master Plan - Adam Lambert** (200 words)

Frustration and outrage fuels Kurt's rant as he gets right up in the bully's face, throwing the accusations he knows Karofsky's thinking back at him. He knows he's thinking them, because he's seen them in his face, in every contemptuous, suspicious sneer. He's seen them in the faces of dozens of scared straight boys, warily eying him as they put an extra foot of distance between themselves and him.

As if he's _contagious_.

As if he's just waiting for the first momentary opportunity to catch them alone and violate them, forcing himself upon them.

 _As if_.

But then, Karofsky's grabbing him, and kissing him, and slinging him up against the row of lockers behind him – ignoring his protests and struggles, pinning him where he wants him and taking what he wants.

As shock gives way to fear gives way to blinding, suffocating agony, Kurt wishes he'd never followed his tormentor into this isolated, empty place – wishes he hadn't given him the opportunity to overpower him and take from him what he'd clearly wanted all along – what had fueled his anger and violence and intimidation...

And too late, it dawns on Kurt that Karofsky was the one with the 'master plan' all along.

 **Defying Gravity - Glee Cast** (175 words)

He's ecstatic, soaring, as he walks the elegant marble halls of his new school, a little bit dazzled by the sparkle surrounding him – and a little bit drunk on the heady, intense presence of the beautiful boy at his side.

Blaine's taken it upon himself to be Kurt's guide here – and Kurt doesn't mind a bit.

The agony of terror that was his life at McKinley High seems a distant memory, far from the reality of the present. It's a brand new life, and he's embracing it with every fiber of his being. In this moment, he can barely remember what Karofsky _looks_ like.

Then, someone comes darting around the corner – someone big, suited up for football, and apparently running late – not watching where he's going, and barely brushing against Kurt's sleeve as he passes.

Suddenly, it's all agonizingly vivid, bright in his memory again.

He flinches, sucking in a startled breath, a dull ache coiling in his chest as he comes crashing painfully back down to earth.

 **More than a Memory - Garth Brooks** (200 words)

“No... no, _stop_! Stop... _please_...”

Despite his pleas, he feels strong arms wrapped around him, pinning him down, holding him in place.

“Shhh... you're all right... you're all right, babe...”

It's not the voice he expected to hear. The words aren't threatening or commanding, but gentle and soothing, almost pleading. The arms around him aren't trying to hurt or even restrain him.

Aren't holding him down, but just... _holding_ him.

“That's it, Kurt... you're okay... come on back to me, babe... it's all right...”

He opens his eyes to find a warm, worried pair gazing down at him, a taut frown creasing his boyfriend's brow as a gentle, trembling hand rises to cup his cheek. Instinctively he closes his eyes again and leans into the touch.

“It's over, Kurt,” Blaine whispers, brushing a tender kiss against his temple as he pulls him close and settles them down on the bed. “It's just a nightmare, sweetheart... a memory. He can't hurt you now.”

Kurt tries to take comfort from the words, but knows they're not entirely true.

Dave Karofsky can still take his peace, his security... his sleep.

As much as Kurt wishes otherwise, he'll always be more than a memory.

 

 **Wasted - Carrie Underwood** (175 words)

He hates going home.

He can't tell his dad, wouldn't want to hurt him with the truth; and he knows he'd misunderstand, when it has nothing to do with him, nothing at all. He loves his dad, and Carole, and Finn, and is glad to see them.

It's just... _everything else_ he'd rather forget.

For so long before he left, everything he did was tainted by the constant fear he felt, for eight long hours every single day of his life. Now, at Dalton, he feels like he has a brand new start – a new life – a new _him_. The past feels like a distant dream that's only half-remembered, and certainly never actually _happened_... and while he misses his family, it feels good to start over.

When he comes home, he's reminded that it all was very real, and somehow the past manages to drag him back down for those brief days, under the weight of fear and insecurity.

Breaks begin to feel like nothing more than time wasted, dwelling on the past.

Kurt decides that whatever happens when he graduates, he's never moving back to Lima.

 **Before We Come Undone - Kris Allen** (300 words)

“No. No, I'm _not_ letting you do this, not this time...”

Blaine's voice trembles with frustration and pain, but Kurt closes himself off, turning away, refusing to let him in.

 

He's just sick of... _everything._

He's sick of the pushing, sick of the drama, sick of every conversation turning into something resembling a therapy session – and if _he's_ sick of it, he can only imagine how _Blaine_ must feel. His voice is low, defeated, barely masking the tremor of tears he's fighting back, as he rises from the chair and heads toward the door.

“Just... leave me alone.”

“ _No_!” Blaine insists, reaching out to catch his arm before he can reach the hall. “Baby, _talk_ to me! I _love_ you...!”

But the words don't register.

Kurt's mind shut down in the moment when Blaine grabbed his wrist.

He jerks away with a frantic, shuddering gasp, spinning around in an immediate defensive posture – and his heart sinks as Blaine visibly deflates before him, horror and regret in his dark eyes.

“Kurt, I... I didn't mean... I wasn't going to...”

Kurt closes his eyes, trying to steady his breathing, trying to rein in his frustrated tears.

He knows what Blaine can't quite stammer out – knows that Blaine would never hurt him, that he only intended to get his attention and stop him from leaving so they can talk this out. He knows that Blaine loves him, and only wants to help him overcome the demons of his past, and the heavy storm cloud of trauma that now overshadows everything he does.

He _knows_ – and yet, he panicked anyway.

And that's it, really, at the core – that's the reason that they're coming undone.

“I'm sorry,” Kurt whispers, shaking his head, giving up and allowing the tears to streak his face. “I just... I can't do this anymore.”

 **Back to December - Taylor Swift** (250 words)

Sometimes he wonders what might have happened between them, if he'd only had the courage to allow it.

 _He tried so hard... went the route of roses and candy and cards, evenings spent by a warm fire in each other's arms, asking nothing more of me than just to be close to me..._

… _and I couldn't give him that._

 _I guess by that point, I didn't have much left to give._

 _But... that didn't stop him from trying._

Blaine held on for a year, even as Kurt was insistently struggling, writhing – a constant, unconscious effort to twist free of his grasp. And then one day, quietly, without the explosion of hurt and anger that Kurt might have expected after all that he'd put into this doomed relationship, Blaine just... let go.

Kurt couldn't blame him. He'd never really taken Blaine's hand to begin with.

On Blaine's last day at Dalton, Kurt slips a brief note under his door, scrawled on a simple, elegant card that says “Congratulations on Your Graduation”. He'll be here another two years, and even though it's been more than a year since Blaine stopped trying, Kurt knows that he'll feel a little colder, a little emptier, knowing that he's not there anymore.

 _Thank you for trying to love me._

 _I'm so sorry I couldn't let you._

The words echo in Kurt's mind as he walks away, eyes dry and empty.

He'd long since cried out all his tears for what they might have been.

 **On My Own - Glee Cast** (225 words)

At first, he hears Blaine's voice in his head all the time – offering him advice, comfort, reassurance – and he clings to it, wondering over and over again whether or not he made the right decision.

 _It's best for_ him, _I know that... even if he doesn't see it right now..._

But Blaine was his first love, and Kurt misses him more than he could have imagined that he would.

When he enters a cafeteria full of strangers on that first day of the year after Blaine's graduation, he hears gentle words in his mind, echoed reassurance from two years earlier.

 _Remember, there aren't any bullies here – just friends you haven't met yet._

Kurt smiles, remembering how he'd smirked and raised an eyebrow at the cheesy after-school-specialness of that statement, and Blaine's voice echoes in his mind again, sheepish and laughing.

 _Yeah, yeah, I'm a corny loser, I get it. Shut up._

When he lays his head down on his pillow at the end of the day, he hears the whispered voice again.

 _Good night, baby. I love you._

“I love you, too,” Kurt whispers into the darkness, his heart aching with loss and love.

The last time Kurt hears Blaine's voice in his mind, its filled with gentle resignation.

 _You know, sooner or later... you're going to have to figure out how to do this without me._

 **Picture to Burn - Taylor Swift** (300 words)

He doesn't know why he saved these things, all these years – memories, lovely and painful, mingled together in the shoebox hidden under his bed.

A picture torn from a yearbook, of a grim face – too tough to smile for the camera, apparently – but evidence he felt the need to hold onto, for some reason, all this time. Evidence that it really happened, that this person really existed, lest at some point in the distant future he should cease to remember.

As if he could ever forget.

He tosses it onto the fire, watching with satisfaction as it twists and melts and finally withers into dust.

A framed photograph of a warm, familiar face strikes a pang through his heart, and he lovingly sets it aside. He hasn't seen him, hasn't talked to him, in years, and doesn't expect to anytime soon – but one never really gets over his first love, and Kurt hasn't gotten over him.

He freezes when he takes something else from the box – a small scrap of red-and-cream fabric.

His fingers tremble with the memory of the feel of it, as he fought to free himself, desperate fingernails scrabbling against arms that were too strong, and succeeding only in tearing free this tiny scrap of cloth. When it was over, he'd knelt on the dirty floor, clutching it in a white-knuckled, shaking fist – and he'd told himself he'd present it as evidence, if he ever got up the courage to come forward.

He hadn't, and he doubts that he ever will.

But at least, now, all these years later, he's finally found a measure of peace.

He stares down at the scrap between his fingers.

He doesn't need it to remember – and he doesn't _want_ to remember, anyway.

He tosses it onto the fire, and watches through a sheen of tears as it slowly crumbles away into ash.


End file.
